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Service Learning Part Du…

Along with the ethics portion of my Service Learning class we had a community service requirement. Unlike in the past when I just had 4 hours of community service required for the past two Mod’s this time around I had to complete 12 hours of community service. I don’t want anyone to think that I didn’t like this requirement for class or that I didn’t take it seriously. I say this because In a reflection paper I had to write for class (which is down below this) I state that I would have liked more of a choice then just the two options that we were given for this class. Another thing that we did for this class is to design a menu for people who get food from a food bank. I don’t know if these are going to be samples used for our local food bank to help give people Ideas of what they can make with the items they would normally get.

In this class we also spent a lot of time talking and going to Organizations like the Vermont Food Bank/ Pantry, I think the idea behind this was to help exposes us to local community outreach programs and show how as a restaurant we not only have a responsibility to help out the community but also a means to. As I said up above here are both the menu and the refection of my time helping out in the Food Pantry. Enjoy!

Service Learning Reflection

1. What apprehensions did you have going into the project?

To be honest I thought that it was going to be like every other time that I helped out in a place like the food bank and that I would just be asked to peel onions or cut carrots for 4 hours. Or that I would not be able to do anything and would spend the whole time cleaning and re-organizing the shelves.

2. Were those apprehensions confirmed or overcome?

They were overcome because when I was there we were allowed to make pretty much whatever we want to. Yes there was a few time when we got told I want you to make this or that item, but we got to make it the way we wanted to and did not have to follow a recipe. There was still a little bit of doing prep work but for the most part it was after we had done all the other projects we wanted or where able to.

3. What skills did you utilize during the course of the project?

I had to use the normal set of kitchen skills, such as knife skills, and time management. I also had to use creativity in working with the number of unknown items that would be available to use that week.

4. What were some of the challenges?

I don’t think that I had any challenges at all with this project. Maybe if you consider walking into a kitchen not knowing what you would have to work with a challenge then yes, but honestly this was more fun than it was a challenge. I was asked to cook which is something that not only have I been going to school for the last 2 years to learn how to do, but is also something that I have fun and love doing.

5. What was rewarding?

The reward was helping out the people in the community that needed it. Not everyone is as lucky as everyone who will read this report is. Simply knowing that I was able to do something that helped out and made life easier for other people was the rewarding part of this project.

6. How did our community partner(s) benefit from your project?

Not only did they get a different style and taste from what they normally made from the ingredients they have, but the Chef was able to spend more time running the day-to-day business instead of spending all of his time making the food.

7. Is there any way we could we improve this project?

I admit that I didn’t like being forced to pick between just the two locations for our projects. Creating a week’s worth of menus for under $38 dollars really didn’t feel like it was going to be as worthwhile or as much of a help as cooking meals, and this made it feel like I personally only had one choice as a way to give back to my community. Even the extra credit of going to help with the flood relief was stopped on Dec. 18th. I would have liked to have had the choice of where in the community I could have done the project. Things like cooking and booking or helping out in the homeless shelters and soup kitchens would have had just as much of an impact as helping out in the food pantry, or food bank did.

8. Is there an area of community service that you would like to focus on in the future?

I have already talked about a few other ideas that I would like to do to help out my community, and besides the ones I talked about just above, I have always liked to do fund-raising events. Donating my time in the kitchen to cook food for a community is nice but to me it doesn’t have the same impact as being able to raise money to give to places like the Food Bank to help them get more items they need. I don’t want anyone to think that I am saying donations are not as good as money, because I am not. What I am trying to say is that sometimes there are things a community service establishment needs that is not or is rarely donated and that monetary donations help get these items.